A new study published in Nature investigates how climate influences the amount of carbon stored in tropical forests, revealing that these relationships vary significantly across different regions and environmental conditions. Led by Matheus Henrique Nunes, the research analyzed approximately 16 million aboveground biomass estimates derived from NASA’s GEDI spaceborne lidar observations across intact lowland forests in the Amazon, Congo Basin, and Southeast Asia.
The study found that there is no single climatic rule governing tropical forest biomass. Temperature plays a particularly important role in drier forests, with forests in the Congo Basin showing the strongest sensitivity to warming. In Southeast Asia, increasing water limitation was associated with the strongest declines in biomass, while storms emerged as an important negative driver in the tallest and most carbon-dense forests.
The paper was co-authored by Adrian Pascual, a member of the GEDI Mission Science Team, and Ralph Dubayah, Principal Investigator of the GEDI mission. The findings were also featured in a Nature News article, highlighting the study’s contribution to understanding how climate change may affect carbon storage in tropical forests:
“These regional differences also have practical consequences. If the Congo Basin’s carbon stocks are unusually sensitive to warming and southeast Asian forests are disproportionately vulnerable to even mild water limitation, then a uniform forest-management policy could misjudge climate risks at local and regional scales. Climate projections and conservation planning could benefit from treating tropical forests as several distinct carbon reservoirs. Knowing which climate vulnerabilities are relevant to which region could help with targeting restoration and adaptation efforts towards the forests that are most at risk of degradation.”
Access the full publication:
Nunes, M.H., Muller-Landau, H.C., Görgens, E.B. et al.
Heterogeneous climatic controls on tropical-forest biomass
Nature (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10880-2
Access the Nature News article:
No single rule explains how climate affects carbon storage in tropical forests
